Implementation of UMOJA by the Secretariat

As conveyed during the Sixteenth Intergovernmental Meeting on the Action Plan for the Caribbean Environment Programme held in Cartagena, Colombia in December 2014 and as part of a United Nations (UN) – wide initiative, the UNEP Secretariat will be implementing a new enterprise resource planning system named ‘Umoja’ with effect from 1 June 2015. Umoja will integrate the management of all administrative processes across the UN, including finance/accounting, procurement, human resources, supply chain management, central support services and other core functions. The objective is to modernize the UN’s technology, tools and processes.

The Secretariat wishes to alert Parties to possible delays in the provision of some of its services in the coming months.

Prior to the deployment, there is a scheduled blackout period during the last two weeks of May 2015. During this time, no financial transactions will be possible. Both before and after this period, there may be disruptions and delays in the processing of travel, drafting of contracts, processing of payments and other functions which may affect the Parties, implementing partners and other organizations that the Secretariat deals with.

The Secretariat thanks its Parties and partners in advance for their patience and understanding during the introduction of Umoja.